April 29, 2013

• Waiting

  We are currently taking a marriage class with about 10 other couples on Saturday evenings. We are rounding down to the last 2 classes and I am so glad. It really kills into the day when you have to stop what you’re doing at 5 O’clock and get ready for class. It’s been alright I guess. It is given by Pastor Jimmy Evans and it’s a video series we watch and then discuss. I might have mentioned here, I don’t remember, but one week I walked out right after class because they tried to make us do an “exercise” and I wasn’t having it. ha yeah. That was fun.

  Last week we didn’t go because it was our anniversary and we were going to just hang out together so this week they did the “raising children” video. Now, most of the couples in the class have been married(some several times) for a number of years and there is one couple who is pregnant with their first child, so I am not sure WHY they wait so long to offer this series to married couples. This has been something I’d have liked to see BEFORE I got married. Mostly because of the “raising children” episode that we saw this weekend. 

  In short, Pastor Jimmy pretty much told us EVERYTHING we have done wrong in the blending of our family and raising our children.   I thought it was going to be an “A ha” moment for me, instead I caught myself poking Mr Shann in the ribs a few times and then I moved my chair further away so I would stop that, and just did my ghetto “Mmmm hmmmmm” from time to time instead. I felt justified. 
  At the end of it all I felt like I had truly failed my step daughter as a step parent. I felt like I probably could have handled things much differently if I had the support of her father, of course, which I did not. The rest of the series was pretty much about how Mr Shann shouldn’t have done ANYTHING that he did in regards to raising her in a blended home and what kind of parent he should have been instead of the one he was. It was quite brutal. At the end of the video, the leaders of the class went around and asked everyone if there was something they had gotten off of the video. Mr Shann blurted out “Nope. Nothing for me, no”. 

  My heart fell to the ground. I was so disappointed. I have been wanting all throughout this series to just hear 2 words from him. Two words that I long for that were said because of having seen the light. Two words that let me know that  his heart had been changed. And when he said he had nothing to say, I knew that there was nothing left for us to get out of this series. If that video didn’t get to him, nothing would. Parents and Sex were next and neither of those are a problem for us and the child thing was and you know, my hopes were just flushed down the toilet.

  So we got into the car to leave and it was another beautiful desert night. The home where this class is has thee most amazing view of the valley so we took it in for a moment and then headed off to Nubis for some froyo. Not even to the end of the block I hear the most amazing things come out of my husbands mouth. 

  ” Never before have I EVER heard parenting presented in that way! I don’t know WHAT the hell I have been thinking all these  years but I do know this. I owe you the biggest apology I can possibly give. I-am-so-sorry. I had NO idea I was doing it all so wrong and what that guy said was just blow by blow knocking down what I had thought. I am so sorry babe”. 

  I almost cant even type this, 2 days later without crying again. I told him that I accepted his apology and that he has no idea how long I have been waiting for him to say those words. That he couldn’t possibly have made me any happier at that moment. Not that he was sorry, I mean no  one enjoys being brought to repentance, but that we could finally move past this once and for all because the cycle was going to end finally. 

  I am so very much looking forward to the restoration that is to come from all of this. 

  Thank you for your continued prayers. They have been heard. 

  • 12:34 pm
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